The Mom Blah Blah Blog

Okay,  I admit it.  I can be a bit vindictive.  I know I've spoken before about how I can hold a grudge like nobody's business.  What I try to leave out is how I usually wish those people ill will.   These grudges are mostly, if not all, against people that have done something hurtful to myself or someone I love.   I try not to let my poor opinion of these people affect how I act towards them.   I also try not to speak poorly of them but I know I have failed on more than one occasion.   By saying I am vindictive however I don't mean that I wish them physical harm or be left penniless and destitute.   What I am saying is there is something satisfying about seeing that someone that made fun of your weight has put on about 50lbs or the person that looked down on your blue collar job working one of their own.   I know there are people that I have wronged though too.  I have a feeling there are some grudges out there directed at me too.  I know I made mistakes and I've m

There is a word that I really dislike.  Whenever I hear someone use it I get a little annoyed and it takes a lot of restraint to not say something about it.  So today I'm letting loose in the hopes that maybe we can think a little more about what this word really means.   The word is deserve. I hear people say things like, "I have to have go on vacation every few months.  I. Deserve it." or "I deserve a new outfit.  I've been working so hard." That word can be inserted into pretty much any sort of indulgence in order to justify the choices we make. Now, don't get me wrong, I have no problem at all with vacations, new outfits,  delicious food, fancy coffee or nights out on the town.  In fact I enjoy these things to whenever I can. The problem I have is with the idea of deserving them.   Like we are owed for being or doing well.  In fact that is the definition of the word deserve.   To do something, have or show qualities worthy of reward (or punishmen

It's a sad day in our house today.  We needed to put down our kitten, Vaughn.  Yes, you read right.  I did say kitten.  He was 7 month old and we had him for only 4 of those months but it's strange how quickly a little fur ball can grow on you.  We noticed about a month ago that his belly got really big pretty quickly.  We thought it was strange but figured that he might be going through a bit of a growth spurt.  He wasn't doing as much playing and running around either but we thought he was just getting bigger and growing out of the super playful kitten stage.  Again we didn't think much of it.  Then he started to miss the litter box.  At that point we figured something was the matter and decided he must have a UTI.  That sort of explained to me why he would be so bloated around the belly too.  I was certain that was what it was and he was just backed up with urine.  We made an appointment to take him to the vet and once she started to examine him she mentioned that

Is how kind you are directly proportional to how attractive you are?  Are you a mean and nasty person if you have an unfortunate skin condition?  If were were blessed with extraordinary good looks does that mean you are the kindest person around?  Well, Disney seems to think so.  The kids were watching an episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates the other day while I was puttering around the kitchen half listening.  All of a sudden I started to pay more attention.  The episode was about the Pirate Princess and a mean sea witch that was going to turn her into a golden statue.  When I looked at the screen this mean witch had green skin, hair that looks like sea weed, somewhat yellowish buggy eyes and not many teeth it seems.  I managed to find a picture.  During the course of the show the Pirate Princess swoops in and uses her rainbow wand to transform the mean sea witch into a kind witch instead but in the process her looks are also transformed and she comes out looking looking

I've been thinking about the idea of protection, the means by witch we keep ourselves safe.  I for one am a habitual door locker.  To the point where I have locked my husband in the garage.  While he's working on something out there I have to really remind myself to not lock the laundry room door.  Cars and doors are always locked as soon as I step out of them, sometimes even if I am going to need it open in under a minute.  It might be slightly more OCD than real safety concern though.  I do realize that locks don't actually do much.  I mean, if someone wants to break into your house it's not like they walk up to the door, try the knob and say, "Oh darn, foiled by this pesky lock."  No, they BREAK in.  The lock would only just slightly slow them down.  Sorry if I'm starting to worry some of you out there that might believe that those locks are really all you need to protect yourselves. Sure there is things we do to attempt to stay safe and free from har

There have been a lot of heavy things happening around here lately.  Not that there are difficult things my family is personally dealing with but a lot of difficulties happening around us.  I haven't been blogging as much because I just don't know what to say.  Everything I would think to mention just seems so frivolous in comparison to what others are facing.  Yesterday when I got home from picking up my daughter from school she started to cry.  I mean really cry and it took a little while to work out of her what was wrong.  She eventually told me that one of her friends, a girl who was in her class last year that she eats lunch with every day this year wasn't at school.  She had asked about her and was told that this little girls mother had passed away.  I had heard that one of the moms was very sick last year but the information about what child it was hadn't been shared.  Since we didn't hear any more about it I had assumed there was a turn around and she had

As I have mentioned before, I'm cheap.  That cheapness extends to my coffee drinking habits.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good cuppa.  It's not that I dislike the coffee at the many coffee places in the vicinity.  I just can't bring myself to spend that much money when I can make a perfectly acceptable cup in the comfort of my own home.  I once worked with a girl that would bring a coffee for herself and sometimes a friend from one of those places each shift she worked.  I know some of you are thinking it's not that crazy to have a coffee each shift but when you work in a restaurant that serves coffee it's a little more unnecessary.  She once told me she spent $50 a week on these drinks.  Now, I'm not math wiz but that adds up to $200 a month and $2,400 a year!  There are quite a few different ways I would spend that money, I can assure you! We have a 12 cup maker and buy the big containers of grounds.  Each one might cost us I would say an average of $10

We're now a few weeks into this whole school thing and starting to settle into going every day all day.  I must say I am pleased that my daughter has adjusted so well and isn't coming home grumpy and overwhelmed anymore.  Two weeks into school her teacher pulled me aside as I was doing the after school pick up.  There is something about a teacher requesting to talk to you that makes you feel like something is wrong.  So as we moved to a more secluded location I was going over what the issue could be with my little girl, who has so far done her very best to instill herself as a teachers pet each year.  She was not, in fact, in trouble but her teacher did have a concern.  I was told my daughter has done very well, she seems to excel in everything that they have done so far.  Though the teacher said she was very smart, (she even called her a super star) she asked if she was happy.  I instantly got a little defensive.  I believe her teacher was asking me if her home life was a go

The continuation of the title of this book is "the indelible imprint a mom leaves on her son's life" and it's focus is on teaching mom's how to relate and understand our boys.  My daughter has been such a well behaved child and she seems to be very self driven and desires to do her best in everything she does.  The idea of not doing something right or disappointing someone is motivation enough for her to behave and do the right thing.  My son however is a different story.  We have been quite blessed to have 2 children that are both quite good and well behaved in most situations but having a son has been unexpectedly different for me.  I had initially assumed that kids were mostly the same.  Boy or girl didn't really matter a whole lot.  It mattered more how you treat them when it came to development.  So when my little girl grew up loving girly things (I was never overly girly and didn't push that sort of stuff) and loved dresses, babies and anything spark

What is it about September that makes me think I have free reign to spend as much money as I would like?  Normally I'm fairly reserved, thrifty and somewhat reluctant to make purchases but once fall is on the horizon the purse strings loosen up.  I think it's a back to school thing.  The seasons are starting to change, warmer cloths need to be purchased and supplies must be had. Though I maintain my thriftiness throughout the process I think I have gone a little wild with my budget this year.  I just keep wanting STUFF!  Shoes have never been quite as much a draw to me as they have to some other women I hear but shoes are holding a great appeal to me lately!  Maybe it's that the trends are matching up with a little more of my personality now or it could have to do with my new attitude towards wearing heals.  I used to be a sneakers all the time sort of girl but as of late it's heals all the way.  Possibly this is an indication that I am more comfortable with being tal

After a year and a half of waiting I finally had my ear, nose and throat specialist appointment today.  I was trying to figure out when I made the appointment today and I believe it was May 2011.  At that point the date I had set was January 26th of this year but it just happened to end up being the same day my breast reduction surgery was scheduled for.  When I called to change it the date they gave me was in July, on the only week of family holidays we would have this year.  I told her that day wouldn't work so her next option was today, September 6th.  That's a little bit of a jump from July but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.  It's not like my issue is anything major anyways but it just goes to show the shortage of doctors and specialist in Canada.  I won't get into a rant about all that though.  My issue is that I have a deviated septum.  It's been like this for who knows how long but it's been bothering me more and more.  When I saw the specialist t

Though yesterday was a great day of grade 1 I think it's going to take a while to get used to this every day thing.  This morning my daughter was very emotional!  She was upset she didn't have different indoor shoes even though she didn't have to have any.  She was very concerned that I didn't know all the answers about exactly what shoes she needs when and why.  She also was able to tie laces and has forgotten so the gym shoes she does have need practice before she takes them to school.  This was all very upsetting and we spent a few minutes of our walk to school discussing how it's only the second day and it's going to take a while to sort out all the details.  She was also adamant that we needed to go early and I had to pick up some blue piece of paper or else she would not be allowed into her class.  She was completely annoyed with me for suggesting that if it was important her teacher would have sent me a note.  I did agree to take her to the office though,

No matter how hard I try to prepare for holidays there is always SOMETHING that gets missed or forgotten.  Monday however, I thought I was sitting pretty!  I had gone to the grocery store the night before to pick up must have items for the next day, I had my meals all planned out and I knew we weren't in danger of discovering every role of toilet paper had run empty simultaneously.  I had made a loaf of banana bread the night before just to cross something off my list and shortly after getting up I started work on my soft pretzels.  I had gotten it into my head that I wanted to try using soft pretzels for hamburger buns.  I think I saw it on the Food Network or someplace and thought it would be something I could easily try that would be fun and wouldn't break the bank.  My trial run of making soft pretzels had been half successful.  My husband and I loved them, the kids hated them.  So I had even purchased some regular old buns to use as back ups in case my experiment turned

I got some new glasses a little while ago and for the first time since I started wearing glasses I splurged!  I figured that since they need to be on my face every day, all day, that I should get ones that I really like.  More importantly, this time I actually got the scratch resistant coating and the anti glare.  Those were things I never spent the extra on but that were thrown in for free when I got my glasses at the optometrist.  The other great advantage of getting glasses there was the guarantee.  You just feel safer when you know, should something happen, someone has your back.  New glasses have also gotten me thinking about parallels with life.  I think everyone would feel much safer and calmer if they had a guarantee for life too.  That might be what most people assume a marriage will be.  A guarantee that someone will be there to help them should the times get tough.  After all, it's right in the vows.  For better OR WORSE, in SICKNESS and health, for richer or POORER. 

There is something that I should have talked about here long ago but I have been avoiding it.  I wasn't sure how I should tackle this subject and I also wasn't sure if I should but enough is enough.  I have decided that the need is greater than my opposition so here goes.  I have a cousin who is very sick.  His name is Mark Lewis and he was diagnosed last year with Angiosarcoma, a rare type of cancer.  He could really, really use your prayer.  He is married with two young boys.  He has had surgery to remove his spleen where the cancer was detected and though they believed they got it all he discovered in July that it had returned and spread.  Chemotherapy and radiation are no longer effective and it seems the only treatment option available to him is in a hospital in Mexico where he will receive immunotherapy.  So why have I been reluctant to talk about this previously?  The answer is somewhat complicated.  My family has been somewhat estranged from him through a number of

I have to say, I have been very lucky.  My 2 kids have both been very healthy and aside from minor scrapes, bumps, bruises, the occasional cold, flu and an eye infection or two there hasn't been any real concerns.  I haven't had to take either of them to the emergency room... until today.  Now don't worry, it's nothing serious.  In fact if it would have been a little later in the day or if it wasn't the weekend I would have just taken her to a clinic.  This morning at about 7am my 6 year old daughter barreled into our room frantically crying.  "There's something in my ear, there's something in my ear."  She yelled while jumping up on the bed for me to have a look.  I asked what it was and she said she didn't know.  My first thought was that a bug had crawled in there and that freaked me out a bit too.  I dragged her into the bathroom and took a look in some slightly better light.  When I pressed her for details she said it was hard.  That it

Wow, it's been a while since I posted an entry.  Things have been a little busy around here and we did do a little "camping" trip.  Since we were in a deluxe trailer most wouldn't really consider it camping but that's the way I roll.  I've also been thinking a lot about things and doing more work on improving my self image.  Some really good steps have been made and I must say I am feeling quite a bit better about being myself.  Part of that change has come about by facing head on some of the causes of my low self esteem.  As I have done that it has been easier and easier to see some of the lies I have been telling myself and to see them as false.  In doing this I have come across a memory that has affected me fairly deeply.  It was something said in passing by someone who was an acquaintance of mine.  I believe I can sort of see now what he would have intended by what he said but the way he said it and the words he used were just all wrong.  It was inapprop

On this day 9 years ago I was getting ready for my wedding.  I believe at this time I was still in a slight bit of panic about waking up with my eye mostly swollen shut.  I had gotten a small bug bite beside my eye the night before and at 6am when I woke before anyone else in the house I was not impressed to discover I could not open my right eye.  Not the best way of waking up on your wedding day! I quickly dashed to the fridge and did the only thing I could think of.  I sliced up some cucumber and laid down on the couch with a nice thick round slice covering my eyes.  The difficult part about doing this was that I was the only one up so all I had to do while I sat there waiting was to think about how terrible it would be to walk down the isle and having my photos taken looking like someone had punched me in the face. I am very grateful to my mom for dashing over to Shoppers as soon as she got up and meeting us at the hairdressers with some cream that did the trick.  By the time t

I Am Second isn't a book written by one author.  It's a compilation of stories written from interviews done with a number of different people.  I must confess, one of the main reasons I wanted to read this book is because of Brian "Head" Welch.  I've had a bitty crush on him from back in the Korn days and I was rather excited when I found out he had become a Christian.  His story is one of the ones covered in the book and I really wanted to hear what had caused him to turn from being uber "successful", popular and adored to facing the possible scorn of his former band mates and Korn fans.  His story was very interesting and touching but it was not the one that was most relatable for me.  The beauty of this book is that it covers so many perspectives, so many situation, upbringing, confrontations and social standings that there is no way someone could read this book and not find at least one story that they related to in some way.  The book is well writ

It's funny how you can hear the same thing so many times over the course of your life and never really be able to get it to sink in, yet other phrases said in passing can cut right to the core.  Those ones you just can't seem to shake off no matter what you try.  As I'm sure you know if you are reading this, I struggle with self esteem issues.  I always have.  In fact I don't remember a time when I thought, "Hey, you know what?  It's pretty awesome to be me."  One thing I have discovered through responses I have gotten from this blog and through talking to women in my life is I am SO not alone in this!  It seems that every woman has some sort of a struggle at least at some point in their life with feeling like they are good enough.  I have some theories on that and some reasons that I believe it's more common for women to have self esteem problems but I'm not going to get into that.  I went out for coffee last night with an incredible, supporti

My husband and I were kid free on the weekend and decided to take in the free concert in downtown Kitchener Sunday night.  The Trews were slated to play and we know and like some of their songs so we climbed into the car and headed over.  There were 4 bands that played that day and we arrived just as the first was starting out.  Since we were decently early we ended up not very far from the stage.  There were some interesting people we saw and I very nearly got stepped on by a enthusiastic dancing man that was later escorted out by security after he whipped his shirt off and began bumping into everyone around him.  I believe he was quite high and I'm thankful that he didn't attempt to eat my face.  It was rather loud up close where we were standing and I began to regret our lack of earplugs.  Even after a full day I could still hear my ears ringing if it was really quiet.  This is what brings me to the irresponsibility of the parents that we witnessed.  We were surrounded by

There is a scaredy cat in my house.  My son seems to be afraid of everything right now and I have no idea why.  He's waking up crying at night, he's having screaming fits when he hears noises, he won't go downstairs without someone to turn on the light (it's not a dark basement at all), he has decided he does not like water any longer and bugs... forget about it!  He wouldn't even put on his suit when we were hanging out around my cousin's pool.  He did warm up to it a bit and got quite soaked splashing around the sides with toys but he never was quite brave enough to venture in.  Even little kiddy pools bother him for a while until he sees all the fun his sister is having and then you can't get him out hardly.  It is a very different situation for me to deal with a child that is afraid.  My daughter has never really been scared very easily although she does over think things like loosing teeth and death.  She's a worrier but she isn't exactly fear

I've spoken a few times before about mental illness and the struggle I have had in understanding and being sensitive to someone who faces these challenges.  This has become even more apparent over the last few days.  My mother in law had been falling a lot and ended up breaking her leg.  She was living on her own and has trouble getting around due to her replaced hips.  Once the nurse came in it was apparent to her that my mother in law could no longer safely continue to be self sufficient.  She required surgery on her leg and has spent almost the last month in the hospital.  This week however, an opening was made available in a long term care facility for her.  This week has been full of preparation, paperwork and adjustments.  Yesterday she was moved into her new home.  We headed over yesterday to see her settled in.  My husband needed to go over a huge stack of paperwork while the kids and I sat with her and spoke with some of the nurses.  She has been a very heavy smoker for